Its an hour past noon when Edora comes out of her room. She walks past everyone in the inn, is gone about 20 minutes only to return with the blue and white chest and some punks head in her hand, "Lazlo, how many times do I got to tell you to get a new lock for that back door. Another theif got in and thought he could make off with my stuff." She drops the head in a wide stained bowl on the end of the counter.

"I got a new lock. So he did not come in that way." Lazlo sighs.

Cosmic, being curious, slips over to the head and pokes it. Mutters something and the head, before everyone there, morphs into the face of Stan. But Stan is over with his group, who are now giving Cosmic the 'evil eye' stare when ever they think she is not looking. They all are members of Zene's pack and don't like that she so easily beat him.

She taps the head again and it morphs in to someone else that she does not know. "Hey Lazlo, got a butcher knife I can barrow, I think there is some kind of magic device in this head."

Lazlo disappears in to his kitchen, then returns with a couple nice 'boning' knives and such. "We got this bowl here as a kind of reminder of why it's a bad idea to steal from us. The heads are usually left in the bowl till they start attracting flies. Given the bowl has a preservation spell on it, though not a strong one, it takes about a week for that to happen."

Cosmic nods, "Ok. I am not going to judge, but every time I hit this head with a cantrip level dispell the face changes to someone else."

She hums something as she looks the head over, then using the knives she carefully cuts out something about where the 3rd eye is. She finds what looks like a white and grey lined marble set just under the skin there. Removing it causes the head to morph one last time in to this narrow faced man with an almost rat like appearance.

No one there knows who he is or was but all are curious about the magic marble.

Cosmic takes it and hums a chant - disspelling curses and evil, before trying to scan it. What she finds is this item allows for the power of Humaniod Changling. Limit of mass, but the person with this In their head can change themselves to look like anyone. Magical kind of doppleganger. Her minor dispel was causing it to roll back through forms the 'rat man' took while using the device. Most recent to present.

The ability she is using is called Object Reading, it is one from her old life, but till her rebirth she had limited success with it do to her illness (AVM). Now, no longer any strokes or similar problems, she is finding she can easily access her old skills. But it's still takes a bit of effort to use them simply as it's been so long since she has done so.

She finds after an hour of 'reading' that this item Used to be in a diadem type head piece. The problem was That did not change, so it was pretty easy to tell a fake if one knew what to look for. This fellow figured out the magic was in the stone, so paid a mage to implant in his head. She also learns he is part of one of the new 'theives guilds' that has moved in to the city. He took the ice chest simply because he had never seen anything like it before. Otherwise he is a pretty common type theif. His street name was "Slick" and he was a mid level thief in the gang. His given name was Percy though but only the 'guild master' knew that.

She reports all this to Edora and Esmerelda and Lazlo. Lazlo is just happy he does not need to get a new lock and that it was something simple, ie a magic item, that allowed the theif to get in there.

Edora wants to know what the other theives look like, so she can hunt them down (and most likely eat them given the way she is talking).

Cosmic is able to give her 3 faces (cantrip: Image - 2D picture only visible from the front). She states she does not know their placement in the gang and is unsure about some of it cause reading objects is not an ability she has used in a fair amount of time. Because of that the images are not clear, blurred a bit and she points out that some could be wrong or confused for other people cause she has not really used that power much. Psionics, like any other skill, takes practice and use. She is out of practice with it. She also states she is not sure if the faces she is seeing are his associates or just faces of people he has used before.

She puts it in a format that she was more focused on her demon hunting powers, or at least hints at that as a reason for being so our of practice with this skill / power.

Takes a bit to get Edora calmed down as it is evident that Cosmic can not give her a possitive ID on the villains of the hour. That said, Edora puts the ice chest away then sorts her stuff before coming down a little later, calmer but still a bit miffed about the whole incident.

Esmerelda kind of gets her out of her funk by mentioning that Cosmic needs to do some shopping as she lost most of her lugage on the trip here. Edora normally enjoys shopping and it tends to put her in a better mood. Also Esmerelda points out they need to take Cosmic by an adventurers guild and get her levels checked as she has not gotten that done since she left home. That said in front of the others as part of Cosmics cover story.

Cosmic pointed out to Lazlo her other chest, the lock broke. That one had a bunch of other stuff in it originally, including spare clothing. But they were lost in a carrage accident. She salvaged what she could but the clothing and similar were a complete loss and spread over several miles besides. Esmerelda and Edora nod to that, stating they found her wrecked carrage before they found her. Which is after the Night Stalkers found her, but that proved fatal for them as she dusted 2 of them in very short order. One by a focused Holy attack to the head, caused that ones head to burn off. The other one was a ranged attack, exploded him all over the tree's. That one had a huge sword and foul mouth. Cosmic puts in. Kept calling her names and 'meat' and telling her she was doomed. She proved him so very wrong there. One chi attack later no moron with to large a sword. She is unsure where the sword landed, otherwise she would have retrieved it.

Several of the shifters, behind her, share a look. It seems there is only 1 night stalker around here known for carrying a to large sword. Most of these here believed him to be very dangerous in a fight. As both Edora and Esmerelda are vouching for her on the story, well her credibility here, as well as some more insight in to just how dangerous she is, just went up a couple notches.

------------------------

Getting Cosmic to leave her ever present chest behind proves impossible. She is not leaving it where anyone with a good disguise or lock picks can get to it. She is stuborn on that point. She also knows to many spells to get around locks or in to places she is not supposed to be. Given what is hidden with in it, well the ladies can understand why she is loath to let it out of her sight.

She also lets them know she is keeping her shorts and shoes as they are very magical. The shorts being self cleaning and repairing and the pockets are mini bags of holding. (Impressed them with that bit), while the shoes were striding type, meaning they aid in long journeys by keeping the person from tiring out for 12 hours out of a days walking or running. So while niether item will win any fashion contest, their magical nature means she is keeping them. They really can't argue with that, so don't.

She does admit to having some other magic items, but does not know what they do, as she is limited to cantrips, having lost her travel spell books in the accident and all.

Given the shape of the carrage, broken windows and all, they can well believe many things were lost before she landed here.

First stop though is an adventurers guild that is friendly with them. They are not adventurers per say, but as agents of the Church they get a discount there. The Guild however is in a near by town, about 30 minute walk from the temple town, inside it's own walls. There are wards on the walls there to, but they are a few steps weaker than the ones on the Temple. But have the added benifit of being from several gods over just one goddess.

Cosmic feels most of them are pretty good, a couple she is unsure of and one she blessed out of existance as it was there to undermine the powers of the other ones (she did it with out doing more than a light hum and a little telekinesis in pulling off the blood paint it was made with.) Her humming as they walk to the other town is pretty much ignored as the ladies are more interested in quietly insulting each other and arguing on shopping or guild first. Cosmic just focuses on following them and blasting minor demons and astral pest as practice, while they travel around.

At the city gate they show their church insignias, (necklace with symbol of Suine on one side and rank in the church on the other - Cosmics only has the ladies symbol at present as she is new to the ladies service.) Which allows them entry with out a tariff.

Esmerelda's shows she is a priestess of the order, while Endora is shown as a warrior and body guard to Esmerelda. However, as Cosmics is blank, they try and get her to show the contents of her strange trunk. She offers to show them the contents of their heads if they dare touch it. Takes the other two to get the guards to back off, stating the contents are items under her protection as given to her by the goddess. They don't really believe it, but let it go for now cause the elf has this Feeling about her that pretty much screams, 'dangerous if provoked'.

Even so they do send a couple of 'spy' types to follow them to make sure they are not up to no good.

The spy's are spotted in seconds by the trio, who just ignore them for now as they are not doing anything illegal.

The Adventurers guild is and is not what she was expecting. No tavern or open meeting room for the adventurers to relax in. There is a waiting room for potential clients. Receptionist to take applications or set up individuals for work. Not everone here is an adventurer. Some of this place is a work program type thing. Matching clients with jobs. Bit of a mixed bag. But it does include a wall with open jobs (adventure to baby sitting, finding lost things including pets, and ads for all kinds of things, from armor to special services.) That board, the ladies explain to Cosmic, are for jobs not put through the guild, so they can be a bit more tricky or dangerous as they have no safty net, which is usually handled by the guild. Though a lot of the jobs there are usually pretty easy or boring things, some are dangerous in other non combat ways.

Cosmic nods, Babysitting, she states, can be far more dangerous in its own way than a dungeon crawl if you get the wrong kind of kids to look after. She states she is speaking from experience there. The ladies just grin and nod to that.

Cosmic mutters that there have been times she wished exorcism worked on spoiled, self entitled people. Esmerelda snorted a laugh at that.

Edora explains there is another board inside the adventurers section that has open missions to, but you have to be a member of the guild to get those missions. They are mostly collection jobs, in that people go out and collect parts of monsters, or prospecting kind of things. Some looking for items for collectors and such as well. Cosmic nods, that is closer to what she was expecting. Though still a little sorry there is not a tavern or such attached to the place, but she keeps that to herself.

Where they take her is a large room with several items in it for testing different sorts of skills and abilities. They use these to gauge a persons level. She is a bit surprised there is not a single item that just scans a persons 'aura' to get it. Edora nods that such items exist but they are not very accurate and tend to just give an over view of ability.

They have to wait in line as the testing area is in use and it's well after noon.

Still she is able to get in and get tested. The ones running the test think, at first, that her being here, and being so young, is cute. They do not expect her to be all that skilled. She proved them Very wrong on that. She played it straight, no powers or special skills. Showed them Just what she is capable of that way.

Their test showed her to be a level 9 warrior and level 10 mage, but oddly a level 7 exorcist. Which blew the ladies minds a bit. They were so sure her skill there was much higher.

Sitting outside, looking over the test scores Esmerelda mutters, "I was so sure your exorcist skills would be higher."

"Well inside the Temple area they are, but I can draw on the Goddesses power there, boosting my abilities. That is what my skill level is outside of a sanctified area."

Edora is nodding. Skilled yes, but not nearly as powerful as they thought. Which Cosmic has mentioned a couple of times. She thinks she understands it. Being inside the Temples defenses, gave her a power boost. Which she used to great effect. She is still quite impressed with the child. Also she is pleased on her combat skill reading. She suspected that part, given what she heard concerning the fight between her and Zene. Zene is a level 7 warrior, when not in crinos. Crinos ups that a bit, but then so does Cosmics special training and techniques. She suspects had she used those in the test she would have had a 'ghost rank' much higher than her real rank.

She is pleased about her rank as a mage to. But understands, with out spell books she is limited to cantrips and lesser magics.

Esmerelda sighs, "I really thought you would have kittens when you came to realize she is more skilled than us."

Edora chuckles, "She was chosen by the Goddess because of her knowledge and skills, also the Goddess does tend to under score people, so it was not to much of a shock on how high a level she is really."

Esmerelda can't argue with that, she knows that is true to. In her field the goddess is very good. Adventurers are not in her field really. Sun, agriculture, protection all very good. Gaging mortal strengths and weaknesses in working out skill levels, bit of a hit or miss there really. Unless its a priest then she is right on the mark of course. Even so, the Goddess is quite understanding of her short comings and pretty easy going on a lot of things. The fact that she allows the undead, as long as they are not evil, in to her ranks, as well as other 'monster races' impresses these two women - Cosmic has never given that any thought as this is not her world, so she does not have opinions on how things are here or not, at least not yet. (She is also a very advanced soul, so her outlook on things is much different from most peoples.)

On shopping, Cosmic is pretty laid back going to the market, but once in the market she sticks very close to the two and is openly nervous. Many people give her a bit of a stink eye, while openly coveting her pull along chest. One woman even tried to force her to give up her shoes as 'they were ugly'. Took the two intimidating women to force the bully of a snob to back off. While they were dealing with that woman, some over pompus man sicced the guards on Cosmic, trying to have them arrest her for stealing 'His' wheeled chest.

Cosmic explained in slow terms, that the chest belongs to her. The guards at the gate saw her come in with it. She actually started to visibly glow, the light spread out from her, causing several people to become physically sick as the Evil inside of them was being pushed out or back. Seeing that Cosmic started her prayer to the universe.

Edora felt it first and turned in time to see the silver and gold aura spread out from her as Cosmic Blessed everyone and thing with in 30 feet of her. Esmerelda watched as minor and medium level demons, dark spirits and other similar things became visible as they fled the light, or were destoryed Trying to get away from the Cosmic Child. The pompus man fell over in a dead faint, even as some shadow Thing, which was very visible to Everyone there, crawled out of him and tried to flee. Only to get blasted by someone else.

Coming up the road are a group of high level types. The priest in their number seeing the Holy Light, converged on the area, then added their own potent blessings to what Cosmic is doing, causing the Demons to lose many host and much ground.

Unfortunetly it did not work on Some people (the woman was still an insuferable hag of a person, no amount of Holy could fix that). though she did prove to be evil and thus forced away from the Holy One.

This brought out that Cosmic, is a warrior mage and also an exorcist in service to Suine. The high level sorts confirred with the guards and it came out the pompus one liked to accuse people of stealing things, so the guard would give those items to him, even as they locked up the actual owners.

The guard, after hearing the testimony of the adventurers, arrested the pompus one. They don't like being tricked in to stealing things for such scummy persons as this one.

While that was happening Cosmic pointed out to the ladies that the demons who all fled were of the Emotion feeder types. Different kinds of Legion Demons really. The one that came off the pompus man fed on Greed as an example. He was not possessed so much as a walking buffet for those sorts of demons.

The ladies, hearing about what sort of demons were expelled, are getting the understanding of what Cosmic said about her training. The sort of things she works on removing are spiritual parasytes for the most part. They weaken a persons spirit, making it easier for them to gain power over and influence them in to doing bad things. Do enough bad or petty things and your soul goes to hell when you die. Which makes the dark realms all the stronger. It's a long drawn out plan which they have been doing for thousands of years to great effect.

The high Priest in the group are a bit blown away as they come to understand how these things work and their true nature and long term goals. It's not something most of them ever gave much thought to.

-----------------

It is almost dark before they manage to get Cosmic to a clothier who makes ready made items. She is able to get a couple of outfits and some much needed undergarments. Fortunetly her small size means its pretty easy to get her good clothing at lower prices.

So with 5 full outfits and several good accessories, they make only 1 other stop.

The Mages Guild, where she is able to sell one of her dragon fire opals to the guild then pick up some common spells, stuff to make a travel type spell book, a bunch of scrolls of common spells, and get some items she has identified. She knows about the shoes, pants and her bags, as Suine is the one who enchanted them. But other items of hers came through changed and she does not know what they do.

She is tickled, as is the mage who did the identifying, to learn that a box she has is indestructable, but the fun part is the items in the box self replicate. Cloth like cleaning aids (Charmin Wipes), which she explains are for cleaning one self after using the jakes. The box keeps them from drying out. The bag inside the box does the actual replicating.

The only other item she has is this strange mug with the picture of a tavern on the side. Turns out its an advanced form of Alchemy Jug, but can pull forth any non magical liquid, drinks, honey, even different kinds of fresh blood, multiple times a day. At different tempetures to. That tickled and relieved Cosmic. Now she need not fear running out of her favorite cream for her coffee (or running out of coffee for that matter).

Her change from that opal took them a bit to put together. Took her all of 2 minutes to dispell all the tracking spells they put on the bag and coins they placed on the payment, which she did with them watching and looking slowly defeated.

Edora ask, "Why did you do that ? Put tracking spells on her stuff ?"

Cosmic answers, "I paid with a dragon opal, so these two were hoping I would lead them to where I got it." the mage - clerks droop more.

Cosmic sighs, "Problem is that is a cut stone and these idiots don't seem to understand that they don't come out of the ground that way." she turns to the idiots, "That stone was given to me by my Grandfather. He is a Jeweler. I don't have a steady source of income so I had to sell it. I sold it to your guild in order to get the supplies and gear as well as services I need. I would not have done that otherwise as I do know how much one of those goes for locally. The High Priestess of Suine and one of her aides appraised all my gems and jewelry for me when I arrived here yesterday. I did not have much that way either. But magic as you all know is expensive, especially when you have to build up from the ground up again. As I explained to your guild master, I lost almost everything I owned but these few items when I was in an accident near here. I am having to get everything new. Spells, books, everything. SO I made a deal with him, I traded that gem to the guild for a small amount of gold and a line of credit good for products or services through this guild."

The idiots in question are low level clerks with more greed than sense. The Guild Master is very unhappy with them when he learns that some of his clerks Decided she must have a mine or some such and planned on tracking her back to it in order to rob her blind. He is a good sort, so they are on probation. But he lets them know they are on their last one. They pull anything like that again and they will get banned not only from the guild, but forfiet all the things they gained while working there. (Esmerelda told him as she was massively miffed with his people for trying to rob the girl.)

The main instigator, staring at her, "You don't look skilled or smart enough to have noticed that."

She gives him a wide eyed look, "Had you Read that paper they gave you on me, you would have noticed I am a level 10 mage, seasoned Exorcist and warrior. You don't get that way by being stupid and nieve. Yes I have a youthful appearance, does not mean I am nieve. I grew up around humans I know what to look for in stupid. Your stupid just so I am clear."

The GM actually agree's with her on that point, but for the moment is keeping it to himself. Edora points out that Cosmic is an Elf to. Elves tend to look young even when they are not. Something else the GM and most everyone else is aware of. But this group of clerks seems to be in the minority of that information.

Still, after all that they leave and head back to the Temple. It's after dark but these 3 are not bothered by that.

Cosmic herself is fine with it being night time. The guard warn them to be careful, cause of the vampires. The ladies just nod, Cosmic just glows light silver in the moon light, stating those sorts tend to burn in her presence. The waves of quiet power she gives off help bolster the guards resolve to.

Sure she attracts bullies and idiots, but she also attracts people who want to protect her, or just bask in the Holy Aura that is constantly around her. Its a strange mix to be sure.